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Sports of The Times; Knicks Get Back To Business

BASKETBALL finally returned to Madison Square Garden last night, none of it worth waiting for from the Knicks, who fell into the same hypnotic trance that Marcus Camby was understandably in.

Days removed from his family's hostage ordeal in South Windsor, Conn., Camby didn't get a rebound until the fourth quarter, by which point the somnambulant Knicks were down by 20 points to the Toronto Raptors and soon to be counted out, 94-74.

Start to finish, it was a strange, subdued night, the loudest cheer for Patrick Ewing, introduced in his courtside seat. If actual games are the fans' sustenance, they could have starved counting down the four days plus to Game 2 of this first-round playoff series, and then watching the Knicks shoot 39 percent and be outrebounded by 48-36.

''I'd rather have the time before the series than once the series starts,'' Jeff Van Gundy had said earlier. He added that the potential of five games over an Olympic-like 13 days could prevent the normal rhythm of a riveting competition from developing -- all in the name of telecasts that are increasingly not being watched.

That's the National Basketball Association these days, a once-glittering product that will try anything to get people's attention, including deafening noise in every arena, personalized dot-com services for all of humankind and the standard merchandising push that could clothe the population of China 20 times over.

Anything but a steady and meaningful presentation of what this league used to do best, the game itself, for which a series of rule changes now follows every ratings downturn, the latest and most radical going into effect next season without even a trial run.

Don't get the Knicks' coach going on this because, as Van Gundy said, ''When I start being honest, I get myself in trouble with my big mouth.'' Like all sports micromanagers, he will overstate things, but his love of the unembellished game is indisputable, and it's too bad he was left dangling by his coaching peers and by league officials after his ''God and golf'' commentary in New York magazine.

In symbolic ways, Van Gundy was on the mark and, beyond the support he didn't get, he deserved credit for having had the courage to express himself on a touchy subject the N.B.A. has run away from.

Van Gundy put himself in the unenviable position of seemingly campaigning against the players' right to gather religiously. But his point had little to do with expression and everything to do with what a professional athlete or any performance employee owes his or her boss, as regards focus and preparation.

Could, for argument's sake, the players hold chapel before the morning shoot-around? Could they get to the Garden at 5:30 p.m., a half-hour before they are due in the locker room? Of course they could, but that would require a sacrifice of their own time. Better to intrude on the coach's and on the league-designated news media's, and why not, if team and league are afraid to say no.

The N.B.A. was far more intrepid regarding Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, when the little guard several years ago cited religious beliefs in refusing to stand for the national anthem. Abdul-Rauf, a Muslim and part of a tiny N.B.A. minority, was infringing on no one, but he was deemed a public-relations nuisance, so the league made him stop. Charlie Ward, conversely, has for years used his professional work place as a pulpit, to the discomfort and chagrin of a number of teammates, among others. No one in the Knicks' front office, apparently, ever ordered him to confine his workplace passion to the game.

Basketball should come first, yet when the N.B.A. has its own set of inverted priorities, when playoff continuity is sacrificed to a network's scheduling demands because of the fear of a smaller contract, the message is that the game itself is secondary, if not an afterthought.

Beyond the four-day wait to reach Game 2, the Knicks and the Raptors will play once more over the next five days. The world was created faster than it will take to complete this series, but it could also be the best thing the Knicks have going for them, as they go against Vince Carter and the emerging Alvin Williams in Toronto, the Raptors riding the high of their first playoff victory in franchise history.

In another Knicks playoff twist, the length of the series may be their best chance to get back the Camby who had 18 rebounds in Game 1, the Camby they're going to need to escape the first round.